The Alchemy Of Trauma And Healing: The Inner Revolution

Join this discussion between Tina Mundelsee and Michelle Agopsowicz as they discuss trauma, healing, and how to thrive, transform your beliefs, and enhance your human experience! What is trauma and how is it a universal experience that each of us can transform to enhance our life? Learn tips and tricks to calm your nervous system. Tigger Warning: discussion of Trauma

Transcript

Welcome to the Inner Revolution series. I'm Tina and my guest today is Michelle Agopsovich. Michelle has a master's in social work, A bachelor's in disability studies, And she's a Reiki master. She knows from her own experience that trauma is a universal human experience that affects body, Mind, And spirit. And today, She shares her knowledge about healing and reconstructing our place in the world. Thank you so much for being here, Michelle. Thank you so much for having me, Tina. Thanks. So shall we just start by defining trauma or how it shows up? I sometimes, I've been talking about trauma so much now in this summit, And I don't want people to think that trauma is only like physical abuse, Right? When we talk about trauma, It's also the limiting beliefs that are programmed in our mind, Right? That are holding us back. So how does it show up? Yeah, And I think when we see the word trauma, It does, It looks so scary. And it looks like something that happens through like natural disasters or abuse, Things like this. And yet what we're starting to learn about trauma, Which is so exciting, Is that it isn't just those things. It's those things for sure, But it's also maybe a sense in our lives that we haven't belonged, Or that we've had a parent who was ill, Or we had an early experience of like divorce or death, An illness, An accident, Something that shakes our core, Something that shatters our assumptive view of the world and makes us look at the meaning of that differently. And so if you think about something that happens to us when we're three, And we can't understand what that is, Even if it looks fairly quote unquote minor, If it has shattered who you think you were and how you were safe in the world, That's all that matters. So that's how we're starting to define trauma, That it's any experience that has overwhelmed the ability to cope. And we're really starting to understand that it's also more about how the brain and the body then encodes that and makes sense of it. And it is really a feedback loop between our thoughts and our patterns, And then how it shows up somatically in our emotions, In our body. And we might not be able to remember that, Right? This is like we- Yes. Okay. Yeah, Yeah. And so lots of times we think about PTSD and that's not what we're necessarily talking about. We're talking about these moments in time where a smaller, Younger version of you decided to come up with a strategy to survive. And so lots of times that looks like, It can look like perfectionism, It can look like people pleasing, It can look like always having stomach aches, It can look like having migraines, It can look like needing your body, It can look like wanting to move your body, It can look like so many different things that we don't necessarily label as trauma because trauma really is the story of our lives and the stories that we tell ourselves about the things that are hard. Now, When we talk about trauma, This is like, Seems like all doom and gloom, But what I love talking about it is, Okay, But on the other side of that, If we de-stigmatize trauma, If we talk about it as an experience that we all go through things in our lives that are hard and we all come out the other side, Having come up with different coping strategies to survive that, Then it means that we can also start to make meaning of our lives. It means we can integrate that in a different way and no longer do we need to feel like there's something wrong with us because we're anxious or depressed or have like IBS or migraines. Suddenly it's like, No, It's not about that I did anything wrong, It's that something happened to me and this was how I reacted to it. And so I think it allows us to come with a little bit more self-compassion. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. And it's maybe, You said a very important thing, It's important not to label it immediately, Right? I mean, We have to use words when we talk, But as soon as we label something as bad, Then it has completely different effect on us, Right? Yeah, Yeah. If you say it's just a story of life, Right? This stuff happens in life, Right? There's not only good happening. Then it seems like, It's already, You know, Okay, Then that means it happens to everyone. So I'm not alone, Right? Yes, I think it connects us too because we can say, We can more openly than share, This is the story of the things that I've struggled with in my life. And someone else gets to say, Oh my goodness, Yes, I struggled with that too. We can create a sense of belonging, But it's also important to remember not to compare. So Tina, You and I could walk through exactly the same traumatic experience, And I could experience it as traumatizing and becoming part of my story and me not feeling safe in the world. And you might go through exactly the same experience and say, Well, That didn't bother me at all. Exactly. And so it's a universal experience, But within that universal experience, We're all completely beautifully unique as well. That's nice. Very nice, You said. Yeah, It's a very nice definition of trauma. It's a very positive definition, Right? That gives hope, Right? And also encourages, You know, To start your healing journey, Right? Like how would you define the healing or how did you start your journey, Right? Because healing is also a very overused word, Right? It's like, Okay, So where do I start? Yeah, And I suppose I see the healing word as a deeper experience as well, That it isn't something, Because I think we also get into this fallacy of thinking that we heal something once we never look at it again, We never would need to look at it again. And it just doesn't work that way. But again, To inject some hope for people I believe we're healing every single day. And sometimes that's very intentional. And we go to a yoga retreat, We go get a Reiki course, We go to counseling. It can be very, Very intentional that we're working on something. And it's also just as possible to have spontaneous moments where something drops in, We understand something differently, It can happen. And that can happen also through yoga or nature or music or journaling. And so it doesn't have to look the same for everybody. And we don't always have to be striving for it. So I actually see this as a trauma symptom in itself. The urgency to continue working on yourself, To continue to, Sometimes it's okay to rest a little bit also and say, I've healed a piece of it and I'll heal another piece of it later when it means something differently. And so I think it's not as linear as we'd like to hope that it is potentially. And so I, But then on the other side, I'm excited because I'm healing all the time. I'm creating new epiphanies of my own story. And when you've started to heal enough to a certain degree, You start to also realize you can amend your story. You can rewrite your story. You can say, I want to believe something different about that now than I did when I was 10. And I think also, You know, I mean, You and me, We're on the spiritual path, Right? But eventually I think everyone eventually on their healing journey taps into spirituality, Right? And that in return helps us not only to heal, But then to expand our consciousness, Right? And to have completely different possibilities in life and to see life and yourself completely different. Maybe you would have never stepped on this path, Right? If you didn't have this suffering or these struggles within, Right? So it's actually, You know, You know what I love? Like, I feel like in this talk, Like we have, Like we started off like on a very positive definition, Right, Of trauma and healing. Yeah. And I also don't want to give the illusion that healing is always joyful either. Like I think we're always questing for healing, But you know, For me, I grew up as an atheist and it wasn't till I had a health crisis and got into Reiki and came into sort of a secular spiritualism in some way. And I really needed to see it from a bigger perspective. And I think when I'm doing counseling with people, It's the same thing. We almost want that meta perspective where, Like for myself example, For example, I have a tendency to be anxious. I have a tendency to be a perfectionist. And so now at the point in my healing, I still have more healing to do because we all do. Now at the point though, I can sort of watch myself doing that old pattern and I can go, Okay, It's okay. And I can sort of soothe my inner child a little bit around what she's trying to do to keep me safe. And I think from a therapeutic and from a spiritual perspective, This is what happens in healing. You start to be able to look at it from a bigger perspective, Sort of from a bird's eye view versus when we're truly in that trauma moment. Like it's very, Like it's happening very immediately. There's so much pain in it, Right? When we start to do other things, We can expand that a little bit. And it just creates room. And that room feels nice because prior to that, We've got ourselves in these very little boxes to keep ourselves safe. Yeah. And that also is mindfulness, Right? I mean, People often have a difficulty, Right, To grasping the idea of what is mindfulness, But it's kind of like, You know, I mean, You're not in your mind, You look at your mind, Like how is your mind filled? You know, Like how full is your mind, Right? And you look at it from a different, It's like you look at a lake, But you're not jumping in it. Like you don't feel the whole water, Right? Like it. Yeah. And that doesn't mean that we're being mindful to all wonderful things. Sometimes it's like, Oh, I'm manipulating right now. Yeah. You know, Like, Or I'm, Why am I slightly giving a white lie about that right now? Because I, And then I think this is where it intersects with spirituality again, Because we start to get into that non-dual perspective where it's like, Okay, So all of us have this human experience. And so all of us have a human experience of a nervous system and anxiety. We all have the ability to be grateful and joyful. We also all have the ability to manipulate and maybe not be on our best behavior, But it makes us all one. It makes us all the same, Even though we're different. Yeah. So for you, It showed up as a physical symptom, Right? That's all that made. I think the physical symptom made it so that I couldn't ignore it anymore. Okay. Okay. And that is important, Right? Because it's, Everything is connected, Right? If you don't, If it doesn't show up in your feelings, It shows up in your, In like physical sensations, Right? Yeah. And so I've always been a highly sensitive person. I can't remember a time when I haven't had stomach issues and it hasn't always showed up in like my sacral and solar plexus and stomach for sure. But it wasn't till it started showing up on like actual medical blood tests, All of this other stuff that I was like, Oh my goodness. And what I realized, Tina, Is that I had protected myself by really believing I wasn't worthy, That I was disgusting and ugly and all of these things. And so I'd hated myself for so long that my body was like, Well, If you don't love us, We're checking out. Exactly. It's so natural. It's so logic once you look at it from a distance, Right? Yes. And now it's not that I don't still get anxious. It's not that it still doesn't show up in my stomach, But I can see it as an ally now. And I think that is that alchemy where I can really say, Okay, So if my stomach is upset and I'm feeling anxious, That's my early warning sign that something's not in balance. So I can see it as information now versus it happening to me and me sort of being a victim to it. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. And then from like, How did you start to be mindful? Like, How did you learn that? What tools did you use? Did you directly go to Reiki or? Well, Because I'd been training to be a therapist for years, I was definitely a therapist before I became a Reiki master. And so, And I always wanted to be a therapist. So I was always philosophical, Always wanting to learn why does the brain work this way? Why does the body work this way? And as I was doing my master's, We were, It was really at the beginning of mindfulness starting to be a thing. And it just really resonated with me because I was like, Oh, This is why I feel the pain of the environment, But I don't feel like I can say anything about it. This is why, You know, And so, And why is that a social justice issue, Right? Why is that an issue we'd be addressing in counseling? And so, And then as, I think it's exciting part to be doing my schooling when I was, Because now we do in the therapy field have lots of MRIs and studies that corroborate that everything that spirituality has known forever is actually scientifically proven, Which I think is a lovely, Which is a lovely marriage because I think we need both. Right? And so I came to it because I intellectually learned it, But also knowing that I was anxious was like, Okay, This feels better to me. I can do this through yoga. I can do this through meditation versus doing it, Which is completely counterintuitive because I feel like I'd really gotten in my head as a coping strategy. And it was like coming home to my body. Yeah. I have, For me, It was almost, It was the same experience. You know, I was very curious and I started when I, I don't know, I was very young, Like I was 20 or something. I started with yoga, Right? But I saw it more as a physical exercise, Right? And I liked the feeling of being so relaxed after the class because the teacher would tell us these nice stories. Right? And I love that about it. And then I started studying it and I really studied the scriptures and this stuff, But I still wasn't so interested. Then I went to India and I really, You know, In India, They, I don't know, I found the right teacher, You know, And I, He really had me read all the old scriptures and didn't make any sense. I understood it like intellectually, But I was like, Eh. And then I started practicing. Then I started meditating, Meditating, Meditating. I just sat there. Like, That's what you do. You just sit. And then all of a sudden I had this one moment, Like you said, Like sometimes something drops in and then it was like, And all of a sudden everything that I had read made sense. And then it came into my life. Then I was able to, What you said, Observe my emotions instead of jumping into them. So for everyone who's in. Because I think it's this moment. Yes, It's that moment of integration. Because I think prior, You know, A few years ago, We were very dualistic. We were like, It's scientific, It's religious. You're working on your mind or you're working on your body. And I think we're at this place where we're starting to integrate like emotions, Body, Thoughts, Spirituality. It was, It was this like, This is why I use the word alchemy. Because it was like suddenly all of these pieces that I'd been gathering for years came together into one picture, Right? Exactly. And we see now ourselves as a, Like not as a one dimensional being, Right? We see ourselves, We're not just this, Just the story. Yes, Yes. And even within that, Like we see not just one dimensional being of being broken. Yeah. That there is part of us that is always intact. That is part of us that is always the pure essence of who we are. And there can be parts of us that feel wounded. But if we look at it in multi-dimensional, There's a part of us that is always intact. Exactly. And all the tools that we're sharing, You know, Even on this summit, All the tools that we are sharing are actually, You know, They lead you to the ability to tap into this part that is always okay. Right? That is not from this dualistic dimension, Right? Yeah. Yeah. And that healing can be whatever you want. So for me and you, It was maybe, For me it was counseling and yoga and Reiki and meditation, But for someone else that could be marathon running, For someone else that could be painting. It really doesn't matter because I think the trap we get into with mindfulness and meditation too is that it has to look a prescribed way. And I think it's also, Well, Okay, So learn a prescribed way, But then do allow it to sing through your heart. Be what you need it to be because you can meditate while you're gardening. You can meditate while you're knitting. It doesn't have to be sitting. Exactly. I love that. That's also my approach. I don't like fixed things. I like to change. And every day you feel different, Right? So not every day, The same thing is the right thing for you, Right? So- Yes, Yes. But we don't get taught to check in with our energy either to say, Oh, I'm having a kind of flat, Defeated kind of day. Do I need something energizing? Or have I been anxious and kind of angry and a bit frenetic today? Do I need something calming? So this is part of my mindful practice is to sort of at the end of the day, Do something that's the opposite energy of what? Exactly. So that you can come back into expansion versus constriction. Yeah, Yeah. It's also, You know, I often hear or you see it on social media from all the different coaches and stuff, Like you need a routine. And me, For example, I'm the worst in keeping routines. I'll do what I feel like to do, Right? I mean, I know if I haven't worked out for a couple of days, I don't need to tell myself you'll have to work out. My buddy tells me, Right? So routines, I mean, Okay, I have a daily routine to check in with myself, Right? But when I try to put a routine on myself, You know, Like you have to walk every morning and you have to do that. And then I can't do it. Then I feel like shit again, Right? Then I start- Well, Because then, Yes, Because then we inject shame. Exactly. And the moment we inject shame, Then we're comparing to everyone else. Everybody else seems to have more healing and more enlightenment than we have. And suddenly you're looking outside of yourself and it doesn't feel good. It's about, You're right, It's just about checking in with ourselves. And I'm excited for humanity going forward because we are starting to have these conversations that say, How do you do that? Because as kids, We get taught to ignore it. This is one of the trauma elements. We get taught, You know, You don't necessarily like that person, But we're gonna make you hug them. Yeah, Yeah. Or you don't want, You know, So we teach little kids to cross their boundaries and their intuition all the time. It's true. And so, You know, As adults, We have to come back to ourselves and say, But do I know myself? And I think here's a paradox too, That we know ourselves so well, And yet we're also the like ultimate mystery. It's true. Oh, It's true, It's true. And then about Reiki, I mean, Maybe someone has tried it out, But can you give like an explanation about what Reiki is for someone who has never tried it or doesn't really know how that could work? Yes, Yeah. So it's a Japanese healing technique that really, There's many things that describe the same thing. So it is really being attuned and funneling life force energy, That thing that is pure within the universe and learning to really bring that through our systems. And so some people do that through laying on of hands, Some people do that distance, Some people do that by chakras. I like to combine it with lots of other things. And so it really is learning how to tap into that universal force that is pure and use it to kind of cleanse our system or cleanse other people and really look at it, Because we are picking up, We're social beings. So we are picking up every exchange we have with everything, Nature and the environment, News and social media and the people that we meet in the grocery store, We're picking all of that up. And so for me, It was a beautiful way for me to finally have language about what it was to be an empath. Because I think I was always an empath, As most people are probably that are listening to this, Because if you're interested in this sort of thing, You probably are. And so, But I never understood why I didn't feel good and what I was versus what other people's was. And so what Reiki really did for me is figured out where does my energy system begin and where does someone else's begin? And how do we allow those to intersect without coming in and being absorbed as ourself? And I think everyone now listening to this, They notice this, Right? Because if you're watching the news, Right? And currently you only, At least here in Europe, You hear only about the war and it's horrible and earthquakes and you, I mean, All these bad things happen probably all during all history of mankind, But now we know them all and now we see them all, Right? And then sometimes you just feel bad for no reason, Just because you picked up the energy, Like where you go in a room, Right? And there is a person that just doesn't resonate with you and you go home and you feel exhausted. So what can you do? What can you do? Yeah, So if we see it, Yes. So if we see it as like a radio signal, We're tuning into the signal of Reiki or we're tuning into the signal of the news. And so one of the, Cause this is the other thing about spirituality, I'm all about it being lazy and easy as well, If possible. And so one of the greatest things that I love doing is just taking a few breaths and I'll actually tap along the bottom of my collarbone to stimulate the vagus nerve, Which just gets us back online. And I'll actually just repeat my name three times. I'll say, I am Michelle Agopsovich and only Michelle Agopsovich. And I send all of my energy that has been taken, I call my energy back and I send back anything that no longer serves me. And I find that even just doing that three times, I come back into my center, I can realize, And I'm sending it back with love. So even if I've dealt with somebody who was really nasty in the day, I'm not sending nasty back to them. I'm sending their energy back to be kind of transmuted. Right, And I'm calling myself home. Okay, Wherever I've gone, If I've left a piece of me in the grocery store and a piece of me with a client and a piece of me wherever else, In a road rage accident or whatever, I'm calling me home back to me because that's where I belong. Wow. And everyone else also belongs at home with them. So you also wanna send them back with love, Right? And so this is one of the quickest, Easiest ways that I do like after I'm in the grocery store, After I see clients, Because it takes 30 seconds. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Which is much, You know, And I for sure have a robust meditation and mindfulness practice, Yoga. I do lots of EFT tapping as well, But I find that this is the one that I do to clear my energy throughout the day. And this is what Reiki gave me was like a tool to be able to clear my energy, To clean it back to kind of a set point. Yeah, This is also a problem with all professionals in our field. I don't know during your studies, If somebody, If they taught you this, But, You know, I mean, I didn't study to become a therapist, But I did so, So many courses, You know, In yoga and then on coaching and on relationship coaching and so many different courses, But no one ever told me, You know, How to protect and how to clear my energy field. So at a point, You know, When I taught really a lot of yoga and a lot of coaching clients, I felt kind of like burned, Not burned out, But really like drained. And then one day my teacher from India, He came to visit me and he came into my studio and he saw me, Like every client came and hugged me. And he was like, Tina, Stop hugging people. I was like, How can I stop hugging people? They like me and they're like that. And that was the start, You know, When I got conscious of this, Of this fact, Right? That you pick up other people's energies. But- So I still hug people, But I hug it back to them. Yeah, Okay. So rather than hugging it into me, I hug and then I hug it back to them. Ah, It's just the intention you put in your mind, Right? It's just the intention that I'm hugging it back out rather than taking it in. That is a great advice for myself. Because I like to hug, I like to hug. And so I do it rather than taking it into me, Right? And I think we don't talk, I think we don't talk about this generally because, You know, Even, You know, Teachers or people who work with small children, Like you are, We are, And we don't want to not. And I also, Like, I believe in this idea of protection, But I also think that protection needs to be permeable because we want, I think about that protection bubble, Whereas love and compassion and empathy flow freely through there, But it works as a filter so that I'm not picking up your trauma, I'm not picking up your stuff, Because it took me a long time to realize, Oh, I didn't have a headache before that person and now I have a headache. And then as soon as they left, My headache's gone. Yeah. Okay, That's not me, Right? Yeah, Yeah, Exactly. I had the same feeling. It's just, Like we said before, We are not a one-dimensional being and we are not only a physical body, Like we brush our teeth every day and we take a shower every day, Right? But we have to also, You know, Doing these little tiny things to work, To clear and to clean and to do, Yeah? Yeah. To keep, To maintain your energy body, Right? And that really makes a difference. And then another part of this that I got hung up early on in my spiritual journey is the thinking like, Well, Did I clean enough? Was it clean enough? Do I need to do it again? Like I would second guess, Because I think it takes a while when you're working in these fields to trust that it's just happening. And so I will also say like, You know, If you've set the intention and you've done it, Don't get hung up on this sort of intellectual, Westernized world to of thinking like, Well, Did I do it right? Did I get an A-plus on cleaning my energy today? Or did I get an F, You know? So we need to think about, You know, If you've set the intention and you've done it, Then trust that you've done it. And if you feel you need to do it again, Do it again, But don't get hung up on, Because you can also get really hung up in your life being like, Well, I can't be around anyone. I need to clean my energy. It's too much. So I want people to think about being like empowered within their energy too, Because I think what happens in the spiritual world too, Is we say, That's bad energy. I need to protect myself from that. Or I'm an empath, I can't go to that party. No, Like get empowered, Find your center, And be able to walk in the world, Spreading your light in the world without, You know, Knowing you will pick up some other people's stuff. But I want it to be empowered, Because I see people get kind of defeated by that as well. It's, I think, I feel like everything you exaggerate, Right, It's too much. And right, It's really like about this listening to yourself, Like being mindful about the situation. And then you adapt, Because every moment is different in life, Right? So you always have to change. And it's true what you say, People often don't believe that these things work, Because it's so simple. And we are so programmed that life has to be complicated. I mean, From first day in school, Everything's complicated, Right? So life doesn't have to be complicated. That's a big lie we all grew up with. Can be simple, Right? Yeah, Yeah. And we all get into those parts where we get bogged down, It gets complicated. And then we become mindful of it. And we're like, I'm gonna intentionally work, Shifting myself out of this place again, Because we also get this dualistic perspective that the bad emotions are bad and the good emotions are good. No, The bad emotions have, They're uncomfortable emotions. They're not bad emotions. They have an incredible amount of knowledge in them. And the more you banish the difficult emotions, The louder they get. Exactly. So it's much more as difficult and counterintuitive it is, It's about having conversations with shame, Having conversations with anxiety, Having conversations with anger or sadness, Versus saying, I wanna exile you into the corner of the room, Because what happens anytime any part is exiled from anyone is, Well, Now you've said you don't belong. So part of you doesn't belong and part of you isn't perfect. You've said, And so I'm a big proponent to saying, We can also learn to be very mindful about the difficult experiences of humanity. Exactly. And this is why it's so important to bring this mindfulness into every journey, Because if you simply think, Right, Maybe you have the same thought that always comes back and you experience it, Or you call it a bad emotion, A bad thought. And then you simply think, You tell yourself the opposite, That works, But it's not the only tool, Right? You have to, It's a combination of things you have to use. Like, Okay, That works. You reprogram your beliefs, But you also have to face it sometimes, Right? Face it, Understand it. Yes, Because, And here where we look at, Like we can mentally bypass something, We can spiritually bypass something, We can emotionally bypass something. It's about, You know, Noticing the urge to bypass the thought to bypass the programming, To bypass the emotion, And then saying, Okay, But what if I spent 30 seconds just being curious about what it has to tell me? Yeah, Exactly. But I think most of us are afraid that if we entertain it, It'll become a runaway train, Because it does sometimes. We can get into rumination and things like that, Right? But if we come at it with compassion and curiosity versus, You know, It as an enemy, I think that also allows for just a bit more flow and ease in the process of healing. Yeah, I think it's all about balance, Finding the right balance, Right? Finding the right balance. And once you realize you're like, You got hooked up on something, Or you're too concentrated on one thing, You know, And it's like, It's eating you up, Everything was balanced. And then you can't do anything wrong, Actually, You know, Let's say in your relationship, With your nutrition. If everything, You know, You just make sure it's balanced, It's okay, Right? So you don't have to beat yourself up. You also talk about meditation through the senses, Right? You wanna give that example? Yeah, So this is a course that I have. So I see it as the senses of like the, You know, The way we see in terms of like seeing, Hearing, Feeling, Touching, Tasting the traditional kind of senses, But then it is also the elements. So earth, Air, Water, Fire, Ether. It is also about, You know, What, How do we experience our body, Our brain, Our thoughts, Right? Because all of these things are the same, But different. And so, Yeah, Yeah. So I created a meditation through the senses course that really looks at all the elements and multi-dimensionality of how we can experience our senses through meditation. Wow, Cool. And you can all access this course like there. We will put the link of Michelle's website, So you can all.